The latest Flavia Alba adventure. I do enjoy all the stories and the Falco ones before these. Quite a complicated plot all bound up with inter-generational family relationships and inheritance. So many characters and difficult to keep track of them all, especially with the Roman tendency for similar names within families. I read this on the kindle which made checking out family trees, maps etc difficult. This is a continuous problem with the kindle. Thanks to Netgalley.

Visiting a bar and running out without paying could be a modern tale but this is Ancient Rome. Here starts Flavia Albias latest adventure , again it’s a joy to read

Flavia Albia is back and this time there isn’t even a dead body! Albia is called into investigate when two young people want to get married but there is a dispute over whether or not the brides family were really liberated or not and if they weren’t that means they have no claim on the business they inherited. It’s like Roman Romeo and Juliet or is it? Are everyone’s motives pure. Obviously not! This is Rome! This was a complicated case of Albia and I beardy managed to keep it straight as I was reading it all made sense at the time but if you asked to me explain it afterwards I couldn’t have. I did enjoy it and it was nice to have a break from all the murders after the brutality of the previous book. We got a bit more domesticity and there was a cameo the uncles and her sisters which I always like.

I have greatly enjoyed Lindsay Davis foray into the world of Ancient Rome. From the time of Falco (a private informer) to his daughter Flavia Alba who is following in his footsteps.

An unpaid bill leads to a much more complicated case for Flavia.

Decades earlier Appius Tranquillus Surus wrote his will: it freed his slaves and bequeathed his businesses to them. He left an orchard to the Prisci, a family he was friendly with, on the condition that his freedmen could still take its harvest.
Previous lawyers gave up on this case. Flavia has been offered a solution if she is willing to forge a document. The complicated system of Slaves and their freedom is at the centre of this story.

You may get a bit lost with all the Roman names but Flavia’s wit and determination to hold to her values will win you over in the end.

Thanks to @netgalley and @HodderBooks for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This latest offering from the Author starts with Flavia Albia's Aunt Junia insisting that she should chase up a couple who had not paid their bill at the Stargazer Bar . Her troubles are multiplied by the fact the couple are not married to each other - she hates family cases but soon manages to solve this simple(?) case
On completing the case the debtor family matriarch asks her to prove her brother is a freed man and not a slave, his spoiled daughter wished to marry the man she loves - a man whose family are at loggerheads over a will that has gone missing .... a will that has been in dispute for a long time , a will that requested that all the owners slaves be freed on his death .
Flavia accepts the case on the basis that she would only report the truth - a truth that many would like to remain hidden - a truth that is hidden in 40 years of dispute and feuding .

This is yet another delightful book with twists and turns aplenty from the Author - I look forward to reading more in the future

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

Fatal Legacy starts with a sort of domestic spat. Some customers leave not only without paying at auntie’s restaurant. They leave the insult of some rivets in a dish instead of coin. Because Flavia Albia has turned up on an errand, she’s coerced into finding the customers and restoring the payment due.

After some padding by the author about the type of things going on in the family and the general state of Rome, Flavia uncovers the family of the reprobates. The matriarch hires her to investigate a will. This uncovers a can of worms, or a nest of vipers, or a tangled web of lies and deceit. Slowly Flavia strips away until, after quite a decent story, we know who did what to whom more or less. Not satisfied at this point, the author convenes a long-winded showdown for the characters. I think this aims to make absolutely clear that the reader knows who did what, and why. The trouble is, by now we don’t care about the people concerned. Tying up loose ends is all very well, but some of these we didn’t realise were loose. We don’t care when they are finally tied up. Twists in the tail are only twists if they are relevant to the plot, rather than extra colour.

So I’ve been generous with a 4 star rating, because the story itself is worthy of it. But it could have had a good deal of editing, and been a better read as a result. And the plot is better than a few of the really nasty incidents of previous ones in the series.

I''ve been reading Lindsay Davis' mysteries for ages and always enjoyed them. i also enjoyed this one as Flavia Alba is a formidable character and the mystery kept me guessing.
The historical background is as vivid as usual and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Lindsey Davis's latest offering featuring Flavia Albia,private informer in Rome 90 AD is delightfully entertaining, if teeming with what can appear to be hard to follow complexities and absurdities of the historical conflict ridden past of a family that Flavia, in the face of obstructions, lies and deceptions, trawls her way through with her observant, cynical and jaundiced eye. It all starts out with her Aunt Junia insisting she hunts down a couple, obviously married, just not to each other, who run out without paying their bill at the Stargazer Bar. Flavia endeavours to avoid political and family cases because nothing good comes of them, but a chaotic home life and lack of clients has her ignoring this. This case turns out to be relatively straightforward.

However, the debtor family, in the form of matriarch Tranquilla Euhodia, hires her to prove that her brother, Postuminus, is a freed man, not a slave, so that his self willed, 'empty headed', spoiled daughter, Cosca Sabatina, can marry the man she loves, a member of the Pisci family. Flavia is all to aware that the underlying agenda is that she provide fraudulent documentation and tells her client she will pursue only the truth. As Flavia disappears down the rabbit hole of the history of the Tranquilli and Prisci feuds and hatred that goes back 40 years, I had to admire her commitment, persistence and perseverance to not be put off by all attempts to lead her astray. Flavia is a joy as she slowly but surely works her way through the murky past and present of the litiginous families and encountering the contested ownership of an apricot orchard that has defeated many a lawyer through the years, conspiracy theories, plots, scandals, a lost will, and murder.

It's a tribute to Davis's writing and plotting talents that for most of the novel there is no juicy murder to solve, yet she still held my attention with her gripping, intricate, fun and unsavoury portrayal of a family where absolutely no-one is innocent, and with her vivid and insightful depiction of life in Rome in this historical period. A brilliant addition to a wonderful series, Flavia is a great character and I love the glimpses we have into her family life and remarkably progressive marriage with Tiberius. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

A partial sequel to Falco's legal jaunt The Accusers, Fatal Legacy is blessed with a lighter tone, but the case is too baroque to delight. 3.5/5, rounded up but definitely with reservations.

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Flavia Albia has been on a bit of a mean streak lately - even the Saturnalia books have been heavy (and high-casualty) going. So it came as a welcome surprise to find that despite the portentous title, Fatal Legacy spends most of its pages without even an obvious crime to investigate. Instead Davis expands on one of the legal intrigues of her late Falco novel, The Accusers, adding several new generations and a truckload of familial trauma to keep things fresh alongside Flavia Albia's usual wry wit and gently jaundiced eye.

This is promising material to work with, and ends strongly - the complete picture she builds by the end is compelling - but there are so many players and long-ago submysteries and complex family relations to keep track of that Fatal Legacy begins to feel more like a spreadsheet than a novel. Indeed, we get a full scene of the (very sharp) Tiberius Manlius complaining this mystery is all just too complicated to follow, and it's hard to argue the aedile's point.

Still, there's plenty of welcome diversion to be had here if you just let the details wash over you, and Davis' dive back into the eccentricities of the Roman legal system is more interesting than it has any right to be. I just wish it could have been married to a slightly more streamlined plot; one suspects poor Flavia agrees.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an advance copy of Fatal Legacy,

It all started out so simply. Someone skipped out of a bar without paying their bill Flavia Albia is tasked with tracking down the thief and recouping the money owed. From that point it gets more and more complicated with an ever growing list of characters, most of whom seem to be only distantly acquainted with the truth.

This is a very clever, well plotted story demanding the full attention of the reader. It repays that attention by providing a story that grips the imagination and brings to life Rome under Emperor Domitian. The conclusion is a delight with everyone getting what they deserve if not what they want.

I highly recommend this book but to get the most out of it read the rest of the series first. It will more than repay the effort.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an advance copy of Fatal Legacy, the eleventh novel to feature Roman informer Flavia Albia set in AD 90.

Albia’s aunt insists that she hunt down the bar patron who left without paying. This leads her to the Tranquilli family and a commission to prove that Tranquillus Postuminus is a freedman, so that his daughter can marry into the Prisci family. The two families have been at loggerheads for forty years over an apricot orchard. It’s an absolute minefield of litigation, death, claims and counterclaims that more than one lawyer has given up on.

I thoroughly enjoyed Fatal Legacy, which made me laugh from the start, all that time, energy, emotion and money over something so minor. The novel is told mainly from Albia’s point of view, so the reader gets close to her rather caustic take on events and it offers fun in situation and her analysis and dialogue.

The plot is way too complicated to try and explain the nuance. Suffice to say that everyone, including her clients, is either lying or withholding pertinent information. The reader needs to be on their toes to keep up with all the permutations of relationships between the two families and who did what and why. I’m not even sure that I got all of it, but I liked the steady stream of revelations and the kickers at the end. I am very impressed by the author’s plotting, her command of detail and her imagination to bring such an absurd situation to life and make it interesting.

I must admit that I am not overly familiar with life in the Roman Empire, so I can accept the picture that the author paints, a corrupt, venal society with a wealth and status fixation. Slavery plays a big part in keeping the Empire running, never to be condoned but in this novel while slaves may not have any personal freedom, it doesn’t stop them being cheeky, gossipy and nosey. I don’t know what to think about that.

Flavia Albia is a wonderful creation, a working woman in a world run by men. Fortunately she is smarter and more determined than most of them, so she gets results. Her relationship with her husband Tiberius is modern with him having no objection to either her trade, generally regarded as seedy, or to her working and her doing her bit to drum up trade for his builder’s yard. They seem friends as well as partners. The only thing I don’t get is the three name thing, with various characters being called different things at different times, although I discount her father calling her Tiddles from the general confusion.

Fatal Legacy is a fun read that I have no hesitation in recommending.